Blizzards I Have Known . . .
But we Iowans cope . . .
Sure, we’ll remember the January blizzard of 2024 . . .
Yeah, but what about 1936, when Grandpa Homer Stone recalled driving the team and bobsled to town cross-country, because the roads were all blocked and the fences had disappeared under the drifts.
I wasn’t there - but high school sports fans still share stories about the March, 1959, girls state basketball tournament, when a blizzard stranded thousands of players and spectators at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines. Local disk jockey Frosty Mitchell was summoned to come play rock ’n roll music for an all night sock hop.
Could it have been February 1960, when I recall riding the school bus through a one-lane snow canyon, where bulldozers had pushed up mountains of snow from the gravel roads?
Or my first day of work at the farm department at Des Moines Register, January 4, 1971, when by catching a city bus I was one of the minority of Register employees to make it to work. My editor wanted a weather story, so I called Don, a farmer friend near Indianola. Photographer Maury Horner and I managed to get to Don’s place the next day. My story of how everyday Iowans always cope with the weather, accented by Maury’s dramatic photos, made the front page of the farm section.
Or April 1973, when a spring blizzard crippled Des Moines and much of Iowa? I photographed birds and other wintery scenes, then hiked through the snow a couple of miles to the Register and Tribune’s downtown offices, where a skeleton crew was delighted to have my pictures and copy to fill Tribune space left unused when other staffers couldn’t get to the office. (Before the digital age, obviously!)
Or January 7, 1982, when our daughter, Emily, was born in Prairie du Chien, Wis., just 20 miles from our then-home in St. Olaf, Iowa? She and Margaret stayed an extra cozy day in the hospital, because of bitter cold and blinding snow. Meanwhile, son Andy, 4, and I remained home to stoke the wood stove in our drafty old house.
January 2024 may turn out to be one for the record books – but we’re doing just fine, thank you. I’m feeling rather smug because between storms, we made the obligatory trip to town (Elkader) for the obligatory bread and milk and the obligatory bags of sunflower seeds for the birds. And I’m reassured by the green ready-light on our propane-fueled standby generator – which, like insurance, you hope you never use but it’s comforting to have.
Did I mention a stack of firewood in our garage, and an even larger pile in the barn? And a recently tuned-up tractor, complete with snow blade, waiting in the shed?
Of course, I feel sorry for the little deer that’s floundering belly-deep through our woods, pausing here and there to paw through the snow in search of acorns or other nourishment. Maybe she’ll join the herd of a dozen white-tails having better luck digging down to the still-green alfalfa where the wind scoured away some of the drifts in the neighbor’s hay field.
Forgive the cliche, but we’ll all get through it. In Iowa, you learn to cope.
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Lots of Norwegians around St. Olaf, Iowa. But no connection to the College.
We usually all live through it. Good post Larry.